By Myrna Trauntvein
Times-News Correspondent
om Green, a self-proclaimed polygamist, was found guilty
on four counts of bigamy and one count of criminal
nonsupport in Fourth District Court in Provo after an
eight-member jury deliberated three hours.
The jury began deliberating at 8:30 p.m. after a full
day in court but took only three hours to announce a
decision. That verdict was returned just five minutes before
midnight Friday.
Green, 52, now faces up to 25 years in
prison&emdash;five years on each of four counts of bigamy
and one count of criminal nonsupport&emdash;and could also
be fined up to $25,000. The five-woman, three-man jury found
Green guilty of cohabiting with four women while in a
common-law marriage with Linda Kunz Green and failing to pay
the state for more than $50,000 in back child support.
Fourth District Judge Guy Burningham set sentencing
for June 27 at 9 a.m. Green remains free on bail.
"The case is very ripe for appeal," said Green's
attorney, John Bucher, following the return of the guilty
verdict. He said he plans an appeal and will continue to
represent Green pro bono, or without fee.
"He shot his mouth off, he stuck out like a sore thumb
and that has resulted in this prosecution," Bucher said.
"He's being prosecuted because he has gone on talk shows
describing his lifestyle. Tom Green is an
embarrassment."
Attorneys on both sides each spent a half hour
reviewing the facts, as each side perceived them. Late
Friday, in closing arguments, prosecutors said Green was a
man who mocked Utah law by deliberately choosing his
life-style and executing a plan to enter into several
bigamous relationships.
"Out of the 500 million who have heard him (on
television), and the billions of people living in this
world, there are eight people who can take that cloak of
innocence off and expose the guilt he is covering up," David
Leavitt, Juab County Attorney said. "Tom Green is
guilty."
Leavitt said Green did not commit victimless crimes.
Three of Green's wives were victims because they were
married when they were 14. In addition, Utah taxpayers were
forced to subsidize Green's family.
"The reality is that the state of Utah makes criminal
the taking of more than one wife because it hurts people,"
Leavitt said. "If you don't think that bigamy hurts people
take a look at the marriage license of Linda Kunz." Kunz was
married to Green when she was 13.
Leavitt said the marriage took place after a
"courtship at a dinner table" while Kunz's mother Beth Cook,
who also married Green, looked on and consented.
Leavitt then held up LeeAnn Beagley's marriage license
showing that her mother, Shirley Beagley, who is also
"spiritually married" to Green, witnessed and approved that
union at the "dinner table."
Hannah Bjorkman also wed Green when she was 14. "Mom
said 'yes' and Tom took her away and the rest is
history."
Utah law requires parental consent for young
marriages.
Leavitt also pointed out that all of Green's wives
came from polygamous families with the exception of Allison
Ryan, who was "spiritually" married to Green for three weeks
before leaving the family.
Green argued throughout the trial he was not currently
married to any of the women and therefore not guilty of
bigamy.
However, last year a judge ruled that Green was
legally married to Linda Kunz. Green cohabited with four
other women, in addition to Kunz, making him guilty of
bigamy, said Leavitt.
"It's amazing how many people saw through Mr. Green's
use of financial assistance," said Monte Stewart, a BYU law
professor assisting Leavitt in the prosecution.
Stewart said many, from Melvin Poulsen, Green's best
friend outside the polygamist culture, to Judge Judy, on
national television, saw through his financial plans. Green
has done nothing to pay back the child support the state has
sought from him. Stewart estimated Green owes the state some
$64,000 in back child support.
"Did Tom Green owe an estimated amount of child
support to the state? Yes," Leavitt told jurors.
Earlier in the trial, Green described his family as a
beehive with family members working together at the family's
complex.
"Mr. Green says their family is like a beehive,"
Leavitt said. "I have no doubt the women are industrious
little queen bees, but there's a drone in the beehive and
it's sitting at the defense table."
Friday evening, Juab County Attorney David Leavitt
called Green's boss, Larry Beckwith, president of Allied
Publishing in Fresno, California, to the stand. Beckwith
said Green had worked 12 years as a contract salesman with
Allied Publishing. On his 1999 tax statement, Green
indicated he earned $31,983.
Beckwith said of 258 contracts sold, Green was only
responsible for 19. His wives sold many of the rest. About
72 percent of the contracts canceled within five months.
Green actually owes Allied Publishing some
$27,556.
"It means Allied Publishing really took a bath on that
one," Beckwith said.
Green agreed that approximately 53 percent of his
other contracts were sold by members of the Order of St.
Michael, the religious order Green belongs to. He did not
often pay those members for their work.
Green testified a series of hardships, beginning in
1993, forced him and his five wives to seek some $54,420 in
state dental, medical, food, heating and living
assistance.
The family was evicted from a mobile home park in
Sandy. They moved to Juab County's West Desert where a
3-year-old son died in a trailer fire that destroyed their
home. The blaze also sent two wives and a dozen other
children to the hospital.
Green said a second trailer was struck by a drunken
driver and torn open. A wind storm demolished the trailer a
short time later.
Through all that time, Green testified, he worked to
support his family by selling magazine subscriptions in the
West and Midwest.
Bucher said any man with multiple wives and 25
children would have difficulty providing for his family.
"When you have many children and you're not rich,
you've got a problem. But it doesn't mean you're criminally
non-supportive. You do the best you can."
Green, during six hours on the stand, debated plural
marriage and Utah law with Stewart.
Stewart referred to Green's "polygamous plan," held up
a portrait of Green, his five wives and more than two dozen
children and asked, "This did not happen by accident, did
it?"
"It sure didn't," Green said.
Stewart also said Green attempted to circumvent Utah's
marriage laws by marring and then divorcing the women.
"Every time your plan collided with criminal law, you
advanced your plan in violation of the criminal law,"
Stewart said.
Green replied, "When I have to choose between obeying
God and obeying the law, I obey God. I will follow my God
and suffer any repercussions that come from that."
Green maintains he is "spiritually," not legally,
married to the women. "Linda Green is my wife by my
definition all the time, but by the government's definition,
I don't think she is my wife."
Three of Green's wives and one of his children took
the stand in the five-day trial. On the stand, Hannah
Bjorkman Green and Linda Kunz Green both said they did not
regret marrying Green.
"It's the best thing I ever did," Hannah Bjorkman
Green said.
Before deliberations began, Fourth District Court
Judge Burningham instructed the jury that religion was not a
defense for bigamy.
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